(...and that commitment, IMO, is what separates you from an average WAS -- the average WAS no longer feels the commitment, and is therefore already gone.)
Married 18, Together 20, Now Divorced M: 48, W: 50, D: 18, S: 16, D: 12 Bomb Dropped (EA, D): 7/13/11 Start Reconcile: 8/15/11 Bomb Dropped (EA, D): 5/1/2014 (Divorced) In a New Relationship: 3/2015
An important ingredient in option 2 is that if H will do something for you, then you will do something for him.
I get that that was part of your equation, it just has never worked for me. I have done exactly what you're suggesting, but then H reneges on his part of the bargain (with the best of intentions ie. accommodating someone else's schedule.) The only way that would work at all is if I insist on getting my condition met first. Your example wouldn't work because boating with friends is precisely when H likes to mock me, when he has an audience (again with the best of intentions ie. entertaining with humor,) so unless I want to jump out of the boat and swim back to shore, I'm stuck. I realize it was only an example, so I'm not thinking that's the only option. It's just that I have trouble coming up with anything I want from him beyond basic human courtesy and respect. If I negotiated that as a condition, we'd never do anything together.
Originally Posted By: Accuray
It's a conscious effort on your part to find joy in what you have and to celebrate it -- not to resign yourself to loss. This does not come easily and may not be possible, it takes an incredible force of will.
Yeah, this will be hard for me. In my mind, this is what people do when they lose a leg, or have to downsize their house because of financial issues, etc. This is not what people do when they have a choice and the ability to change it. I can get my own drink, I don't have to settle for what H brings me. I haven't figured out why I would even want to?
Originally Posted By: Accuray
Give it time, two weeks is not enough. Investment + enforcement of boundaries + patience
I'm not quitting. I'm proud of myself for not moving back into the other BR after this weekend's fiasco. I'm just looking ahead for the next step. I believe H could go on like this forever.
Originally Posted By: Accuray
I think you're writing about how you want to feel, but the fact that you're spelling it out this way indicates to me that you're trying to convince yourself. If you already felt that way you wouldn't need to explain it, because you wouldn't have any motivation to.
I wasn't meaning to explain it as much as I was just thinking it through as I typed it. More a matter of journaling my thoughts than needing anyone else to understand. I don't desire to do things for H; I don't get pleasure out of it. I used to and wanted to know why I don't anymore so maybe I could address that. Consider it a selfish motive, a way to make this all easier for me.
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If you weren't committed, you wouldn't be so tortured, it would be easy to regard him with contempt and a lack of pity or empathy, but you're not there.
I don't think that's unusual for WAS's to be that way. Zig's WAH is tortured; Ad's H doesn't have contempt for her. I think that attitude comes out when the LBS tries to hold on to the WAS. Plus, I've spent a lot of time feeling that way about H, and there are times that I would have packed my bags and left except for S. I'm just tired of feeling that way. Consciously choosing to stop feeling angry at him all the time is as close as I get to "finding joy" in him right now.
You don't have to make the choice to D your H at this time. And you don't have to live a life expecting to D him in 10 years.
You are frustrated in the moment. That's understandable.
Maybe it is because you feel the obligations of yourself. Obligations that you believe are coming from others...
Yet maybe... those feelings of obligations are really coming from inside you...
When we aren't at our best, it's time for a vacation. It's when we are refreshed and in peak performance... that's when we get value from pushing ourselves...
Hi CV - oh but my H DID have contempt for me. When I read about your sitch I identify with your H. Nothing I did was good. Everything I did could have been done better by him. If I worked hard at something he said I should have worked smarter not harder. If I got him something he didn't like it. If I asked him a question because he wasn't clear, he used his "I'm speaking to an idiot" voice.
It wasn't always that way but it evolved to that and probably our last two years were like that a lot. H really did not seem to enjoy being with me and I could not figure out what to do about it. He wouldn't say anything was wrong, he wouldn't go to counseling. So I resisted, and as far as he went to make me be one way, I went the other way. If he didn't value me, I valued myself more. I disregarded everything that came out of his mouth because he lost his credibility by disdaining everything about me. I KNEW some things about me were good, so I knew he was wrong about some things, and I extrapolated that he was wrong about everything. It's a vicious cycle that would never end until I read Dance of Anger and stepped out of it.
When asked why he never said anything about what was really wrong, he told our IC it was because he wasn't ready to bring up D. When he was finally ready to bring up D, he was DONE. I never felt like I had a chance.
I think you do create leading examples that have only one reasonable answer. The drink thing - so you say no thanks and get your own drink, because you are picky about your drink. Without resentment. I am picky about my subway sandwich, and I only like it one specific way. My H or anyone else wouldn't get it right, and I don't mind asking for it myself so I get what I want. I don't think marriage is a waste of time just because I have to order my own sandwich because I'm picky about that particular thing. I think you're similarly picky or particular about a great many things or almost everything. I don't know if you've tried relaxing your standards without feeling resentment but that might help?
I really admire you for being here and for thinking through all of this. I don't know that you're doing anyone a favor by staying married in spite of the dislike you seem to have for your H, but as long as you're working on understanding and perhaps solving it, I think you're trying to do the right thing. My H did me no favors hiding his feelings about me and letting them blurt out in constant disdain and criticism for years. I felt miserable sometimes and worried about him sometimes, but I mostly thought the problem was with him and beyond my control. Now that I know he was never interested in really fixing our relationship, I'm not feeling very grateful for him staying obligated/committed to me for those years.
Adinva 51, S20, S18 M24 total 6/15/11-12/1/12 From IDLY to H moving out 9/15/15-3/7/17 From negotiating SA to final D at age 50 5/8/17-now: New relationship with an old friend __ Happiness is a warm puppy.
Thanks, Ad, for stopping in again. I was just thinking yesterday that chatting about your sitch with your H is much like a R H and I used to have with another couple that have a blended family like us. We were both going through terrible times with kids/skids and exes, and we used to commiserate with each other on what was happening and what to do. It was especially helpful for all of us because his personality and mine matched, and her personality and H's matched. So it gave us a gender-to-gender way of talking to our "spouses." In other words, if I was frustrated with something H was doing, I could chat with her to get his perspective on things, and vice versa. Same for our H's. Since we didn't carry the animosity of the sitch for the friend like we did for each other, it was easy to talk and listen, whereas we might have filtered/rejected what our S's had to say.
So I really appreciate your time. I feel like I would love to pick your brain for about 2 hours straight, so anything you share will be heard and processed. It may take me a minute or two, but I will chew on it.
In regards to being picky, I think everyone is picky in some things. My neighbor across the street hates left-overs. Some people only wear designer clothes. Some people wash and vacuum their car every week. So, yes, like most everyone, I am picky in some things, though I would say not many. The drink was a hypothetical, and ironically I'm actually not that picky in what I drink, but there certainly are other things. In the hypothetical, if he hadn't just asked me what I wanted, anything he brought me would have been fine. But his overriding what I wanted with what he wanted is the kicker for me. In the hypothetical, he could have walked the 15 feet back to the table and asked me, but he doesn't because he knows what I'll say, and then he won't get what he wants. He has told me this. His philosophy seems to be "easier to get forgiveness than permission."
I'm curious about your sitch and how you handled his dissatisfaction with you, when you were "resisting" what he was trying to do, purposely going the opposite direction. Was there something you were hoping to accomplish? Some goal? Did you believe that your M couldn't be broken? I've often thought that about my H, that he thinks there is nothing he could do that would ever be bad enough to cause me to leave. And it comes off completely arrogant and uncaring, like, "I'm golden, you'll never leave me, you're my W and you promised to stick by me no matter what." Especially when he does the same thing over and over again.
Originally Posted By: Adinva
I never felt like I had a chance.
I can hear my H saying the same thing. At the same time, I would say I've given him a thousand chances. When he says things like that which I have a 180 view of, I just don't bother to discuss it with him anymore, because it's not a discussion, it's an argument. Every response that comes out of his mouth starts with either "Yes, but..." or "No, but..." He's not hearing anything I have to say. So I've just stopped talking. I won't go to counseling because it hasn't done anything for us in the past. Perhaps we're just now entering the phase of the two-year window you experienced.
Originally Posted By: Adinva
I don't think marriage is a waste of time just because I have to order my own sandwich because I'm picky about that particular thing.
I'm glad you answered this way. This is exactly the sort of thing my H would say in response to my analogy. There is something missing in the translation. My complaint/issue/problem is not the drink, it's the fact that he knew what I wanted and purposely did something different, did what he wanted at my expense. This is the sort of thing that I try to explain to him, but he'll do like you did and focus on the minutia. I wonder what that is? I don't know how "bold letter" my conversations with him.
Originally Posted By: Adinva
Now that I know he was never interested in really fixing our relationship, I'm not feeling very grateful for him staying obligated/committed to me for those years.
And yet, starting a year ago, you've bent over backwards trying to get him back, when he hasn't committed to changing a thing. I'm missing something here.
I'm curious what you still valued in your M the last couple of years? What still made it worth it to you? Or what were you getting out of it? Why are you DB'ing? He isn't.
